It must feel wonderful to begin your life as a college student.
In order to make it this far, to a place as prestigious as UCLA,
you must have shown wonderful intellectual capabilities, fortitude
of critical thinking, and academic ethics. Now wouldn’t it be
a shame if you lost all these superb qualities over the next four,
maybe five years of your life?
Far too often I have seen this happen at UCLA when a zealous
student full of potential slowly becomes indoctrinated to think a
certain way by our one-sided professorship. College is supposed to
be a place which allows one to learn new things and gain new
perspectives, but often it can be a process of idea tuning, where
minds are slowly melded to think a certain way or react in a
certain fashion.
“We have no time for those conservative viewpoints in my
classroom,” said one English professor to an acquaintance of
mine.
“I used to feel that affirmative action was wrong, but
then I took a class and they showed me how wrong I was,”
mentioned a student I was debating with in a dorm dialogue.
“The problem with the 1980s was an evil man named Ronald
Reagan was in power…” taught a teaching assistant in a
history course.
The problem here is not that professors or classrooms are
illuminating a particular point of view. Even the most offensive
viewpoints should be heard and taught so students can learn a
variety of opinions. The problem is while showing their own bias,
our mentors are dismissing and maligning other people’s
ideas.
Everyone, no matter if they identify themselves as liberal,
conservative, communist or libertarian, will undoubtedly sneak
their own biases and interpretations into any subject they teach.
However, when the aim of teaching is to dissuade other viewpoints
from being shared, education becomes an oppressive endeavor.
When many students arrive at UCLA they may feel overwhelmed and
out of their depth in a place of such size, away from their friends
and family. This can understandably lead to feelings of isolation
or anxiety. As a result, many students tend to conform and too
readily accept the things they are told. Other students whose minds
are not changed by the constant bombardment of opinion in the form
of education simply choose to remain quiet in class due to fear of
being chastised by their professors or fellow students.
The temptation is great to abandon the thoughts, feelings and
values with which we are raised in order to fit in with the
perceived majority. That is why it is of the utmost importance that
you retain every bit of the individuality that brought you to UCLA.
Conforming to the standard and abandoning the values you are raised
with will ultimately lead to a harsher sense of alienation than any
feeling you might be experiencing now. It’s easy to run with
the crowd, but to lose identification with yourself can be
devastating. And those who choose to remain quiet in their
disagreement are setting themselves up for stress and torment.
I realize it has been cliche to say, “be true to
yourself” since the writing of Hamlet. However the advice is
as pertinent today as it was in the time of Danish princes. I
implore you, remain critical of your professors. If they tell you
something which seems completely wrong or is in direct conflict
with your values, question it and argue it until you can no longer
speak. The professors at UCLA are intelligent people, but they are
subject to biases like the rest of us. They may not agree with your
challenge, but they will respect you for it. Without challenge and
critique, there can be no new knowledge, and any honest professor
knows this.
Whether you are Jewish, conservative, liberal, Muslim, or a Hare
Krishna, you have the right to assert your values and
individuality. A Ph.D is not grounds for taking away ownership of
yourself. Now is your time, students of UCLA. You must decide if
you will embrace the power of an education or if you will slowly
let your mind be taken from you.